Group 2 members: Janine Andrea Buhain Year and Section: BSE-3BE

Francis John Molina

Mary Christine Joy Rendon
Ma. Rebecca Ann Torres

A Historicist Literary Analysis of Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting

Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney

One of the masterpieces of Andrea Davis Pinkney is a picture book entitled “Sit-In:
How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down” publish during the 50 th anniversary
celebration of the peace movement that highlight the impact that this event had for racial
equality in African American history and the Civil Rights Movement. A four hungry
friends who inspired by Dr. Kings’ words sat down at Woolworth’s lunch counter waiting
their turn to be served in a ‘white only’ lunch counter as they did not need a menu and
their order is simple, doughnut and coffee with cream on the side but their existent at
first is like a hole in a doughnut, invisible. After that day, people watched the news and
started to join the four friends with a peaceful protest, some of them is white from their
school. As the four kids change the law ‘s recipe for segregation and it is called
‘Integration’. Further, more places did the same thing as the four friends did, protesting in
silent the President J.F Kennedy taste the SNCC (Students Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee) he did not just sit in, but he step in and after that the four boy’s courage and
bravery paid off and now, they ready to sip the freedom and they got the perfect recipe for
the integration and steps were easy to follow. Throughout the story, the author tackle
what happened on how African American gain their freedom, racial discrimination and the
segregation they experience during the 1960s’ and how the law change in a fictional way
through picture books and using figurative languages to fit in a children’s book.

The Author – Andrea Davis Pinkney

According to the University of Minnesota (2009), Andrea Davis Pinkney was born
on September 25, 1963 in Washington, D.C., the daughter of parents deeply associated
in the civil rights movement. As a result, Pinkney was exposed to the movement at a
young age and was even involved in the annual conference of the National Urban
League during many of her summer vacations. The Civil Rights Movement played a
large role in her childhood and its influence is visible in many of her books. One of these
is the Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down which she wrote in a
collaboration with his husband as the illustrator, Brian Pinkney. This is about a
momentous Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in, when four college students staged a
peaceful protest that became a defining moment in the struggle for racial equality and
the growing civil rights movement, is commemorated in this picture book.

Through her engaging narrative, Pinkney speaks to her audiences without

sermonizing to them. Her fiction employs believable characters, and her non-fiction
uses real people who set positive examples and are ideal icons for young people.
Pinkney has filled a gap that previously existed in children’s literature by creating a
selection of literature for children that provides images of strong black people in
America.

The Greensboro Four

This compelling picture book is based on the historic Sit-In 50 years ago by four
college students such as Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr. (later known as Jibreel
Khazan), Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond. The students wanted to protest
segregation laws that prevented African Americans from entering certain public places.
They agreed to stage a sit-in at Woolworth’s, a variety store that had an eating area.
African Americans could shop in the store and eat at a stand-up snack bar, but they
could not sit at the lunch counter. “We didn’t want to set the world on fire,” Khazan said.”
We just wanted to eat.” Khazan and his friends would become known as the
Greensboro Four.

The students hardly slept the night before the sit-in. They were afraid that they
would be arrested or even killed by the policeman because they knew that white people
would be angry by their actions. However, this thought wouldn’t stop them to stand up
for their rights and the rights of all African Americans. They were determined to fight for
what they deserve. The succeeding day, they went to Woolworth’s. When they sat down
at the lunch counter, a waitress told them that blacks weren’t served there. They placed
their orders anyway. The store manager asked them to leave. The store manager asked
them to leave but they stayed on their seat. Due to this situation, the manager called the
police but then they could do nothing because the Greensboro Four remained quiet.

That night they asked the members of several campus groups to join them, and
many agreed. The next afternoon more than twenty African American students showed
up at Woolworth’s. Soon black students from other colleges and some white students
who supported the cause joined the sit-in. The peaceful protests soon spread to other
states in the South. African Americans began picketing Woolworth’s and other stores
with segregated lunch counters in the North, too. The Greensboro Woolworth’s finally
began serving blacks at its lunch counter on July 25, 1960, six months after the sit-in
began. The first people served were the lunch counter employees themselves. In the
first week, three hundred African Americans ate at that lunch counter. The Greensboro
Four became famous for fighting discrimination. Because of their courage, principles,
and persistence, they have become legends in North Carolina history.

Powerless Vs. Powerful People

The Powerless people in the story are the African Americans because they did
not get the same treatment and attention as the White Americans. On the other hand,
the White Americans act as the powerful people in which they are superior over the
African Americans. In the plot of the short story, it said that, the White American get
their orders while the four college students whose African American weren’t served. The
controversy over powerless reflected and perpetuated a split in the civil rights
movement between organizations that maintained that nonviolent methods were the
only way to achieve civil rights goals and those organizations that had become
frustrated and were ready to adopt violence and black separatism. 
 Andrea Pinkney clearly depicted the racial discrimination in which the black
people is treated less favorably than white people. Pinkney showed the situation of
black people wherein they are considered powerless. But they can’t keep silent forever
that is why they conducted a protest, demanding to be heard, to ensure that these
powerful voices are never marginalized again, and above all to fight for their rights.
Unfortunately, up until now, their voices cannot be heard because they are still being
controlled by White Americans.

The Sit-In Movement

Sit-in movement, nonviolent movement of the U.S. civil rights era that began
in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960. The sit-in, an act of civil disobedience, was a
tactic that aroused sympathy for the demonstrators among moderates and uninvolved
individuals. African Americans (later joined by white activists), usually students, would
go to segregated lunch counters (luncheonettes), sit in all available spaces, request
service, and then refuse to leave when denied service because of their race. 

It is first started with the Greensboro Four and later on the sit-in movement
produced a new sense of pride and power for African Americans. By rising up on their
own and achieving substantial success protesting against segregation in the society in
which they lived, Blacks realized that they could change their communities with local
coordinated action. For many white Southerners, the sit-in movement demonstrated
Blacks’ dissatisfaction with the status quo and showed that economic harm could come
to white-owned businesses unless they desegregated peacefully. (Hohenstein, 2020)

References:
Hohenstein, K. (2020, July 22). Sit-in movement. Encyclopedia Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/event/sit-in-movement
University of Minnesota (2009). Voices from the Gaps – Andrea Davis Pinkney.
Retrieved from https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/166307/Pinkney,
%20Andrea%20Davis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y